


The Goddess of Petty Annoyances

by GalahadWilder



Category: DC Comics, Fourth World, Green Lantern - Fandom, Jack Kirby’s Fourth World, Jack Kirby’s New Gods, Justice League, Justice League Odyssey, New Gods - Fandom
Genre: Black Comedy, Comedy, Morbid, Morbid Comedy, Not Relationship-Centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-07-18 17:01:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16122899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalahadWilder/pseuds/GalahadWilder
Summary: Jessica Cruz is apparently the most fearless being in all the universe. Otherwise, Darkseid cannot think of any POSSIBLE explanation for why she keeps barging into his palace to annoy him to death with terrible Earth food and pointless Earth games.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on that one panel from the Green Lanterns comic where Jessica goes, “I’ll find Darkseid and see what he’s doing for dinner. Ramen? Darkseid seems like a noodles guy.”
> 
> Also, this tumblr post: https://galahadwilder.tumblr.com/post/178541182883/genderbentpeterparker-galahadwilder

It was a lovely day on Apokolips. The sky was drenched in black smog, the cries of the Hunger Dogs rose from the window, the day’s newest suicides had been pried off the ground in front of the Tower of Rage, and Darkseid, New God of Entropy, Evil, and Tyranny, was sitting uncomfortably on his throne. He could have easily sat comfortably, but he chose not to—Comfort was for lesser beings. He always preferred to be on edge when holding court.

Perhaps he’d consider having Desaad add some spikes onto his chair, he mused, staring impassively down towards the supplicants before him. He realized that he hadn’t been paying the slightest attention to what they were saying or asking for—in fact, last he’d been aware, he’d been speaking to Vermin Vundarbar, and the worm before him now was a mere Aero-trooper; hardly the nobility to which Vundarbar pretended. A bored Darkseid allowed his eyes to glow once, cutting off the trooper mid-sentence, and the Omega Effect burned everyone in the room to ash, leaving him alone once more.

 **Purpose=Failure**. A lovely day indeed.

He sat back on his throne and allowed his Father Box to extend his senses across his Empire, reveling in the exquisite agony his subjects bled like magma from a spout, letting it wash through him as he basked in the glory of Anti-Life.

Then his eyes snapped open as he became aware of a mind outside of Anti-Life’s influence canonballing downward into his domain. A mind fortified in green. A mind he knew very well.

A window exploded inward across the room as Green Lantern Jessica Cruz smashed through it in a bubble of green, ricocheting off three walls and shattering, Cruz rolling to a stop in a crouch. “What up, dingus?” she yelled.

”Lantern,” Darkseid rumbled. “You’ve come to your doom.”

He gestured, and a crab-like mecha-creature rose up from outside, blasting its way through the hole that Cruz had made. It flared yellow, firing golden-yellow fear blasts at the Lantern.

Her environmental shield flickered, briefly, before flaring back stronger in a burst of crackling green fire. “Come on, seriously?” she said. “My own _brain_ gives me worse fear than that. Spartan Laser!” A massive green cannon appeared over her shoulder, firing a coruscating bolt of red energy straight through the creature’s armor. The cannon shifted, growing onto her arm changing to something that appeared alarmingly like the Cyborg’s white noise cannon, which she thrust through the hole she’d punched in the mechanoid and fired. Darkseid could feel the vibrations, hear the screech of the mechanoid’s insides liquifying. It sparked, crashing to the ground, and Cruz withdrew her arm, the cannon dissipating into nothing. “Constructs can’t affect them directly, but _indirect_...”

Darkseid settled back on his throne. “Very clever, Cruz,” he said. “You’ve earned a reprieve, and my attention.” He leaned forward, bracing his elbow on his knee and grasping his chin with his fingers. “What is it that you want?”

Cruz shrugged. “Dunno,” she said. “Just felt like hanging out.”

Darkseid choked on his own spit.

Impressive. He hadn’t even been aware he _had_ that.

” _I’m_ sorry,” he rumble, another first—he never apologized. “What?”

Cruz held up her hand, ripping open a hole in subspace between her fingers, out of which dropped some kind of styrofoam cup. “I brought Ramen Noodles.”

”And what in the name of the Source makes you think I will enjoy your Earth food?”

Cruz smiled. “Oh, you won’t,” she said. “It has absolutely no nutritional value, and it’ll make you want to die.” She shook the cup. “I proooomiiiiiise.”

Darkseid narrowed his eyes at her, a difficult prospect with his stone-like skin. Then he nodded. “Very well,” he said, holding out his hand.

A massive green hand deposited the cup in his hand. Darkseid tore it apart, holding up the block of “noodles,” and bit into it.

”You’re... uh, you’re supposed to...” Cruz shook her head. “Nevermind.”

Darkseid chewed on the crunchy matter and swallowed, then nodded. “You are correct,” he said. “This is truly terrible. I am impressed with the ingenuity of the Earthlings who invented such a form of torture.”

”Oh, it’s not torture,” Cruz said. “It’s food. We use it to sustain our... uh... Lowlies?”

Darkseid barked a laugh. “Oh, very good, Earthling!” he exclaimed, cracking the block with his hands and placing another bit of the strange, food-like mass on his tongue. “Truly, I have rarely tasted such misery.” He chewed. “Very well, human,” he said. “You may stay for one hour, unmolested. After that—”

”I’ll already be gone,” she said with a grin. “You fossilized jackass.”


	2. Chapter 2

“I have you now, Cruz,” Darkseid rumbled. “There can be no escape.”

Cruz grinned. “You forgot one thing,” she retorted. “ORKS FEAR NO DEATH.”

A platoon of her betusked, leather-skinned soldiers leaped from the roof of a cathedral, behind a wall that Darkseid had not thought to check behind, bellowing at the top of their ring-generated lungs and driving chainsaws into his Carnifex, which roared in pain as bloody chunks tore out of its flesh. It collapsed, crushing the orks beneath its massive body—but with the Carnifex gone, Cruz’s mekboyz had a clear shot into the center of his Tyranid swarm. The ramshackle robot reared back, a bunker-buster missile canyoning from a hole in its arm, striking the center of his swarm and scattering simulated molten iron across the horde and ripping mass holes in his formation. The orks cheered, charming forward with shootas ablaze and power claws ripping, and soon the field was littered with dying Tyranids and screaming orks.

Darkseid’s eyebrow rose. “Well played,” he grumbled, crossing his arms behind his back.

”Not so bad yourself, for a first-timer,” Cruz responded. She waved her hand and the battlefield, and all the tiny soldiers, vanished, revealing the corpses of the Parademons he had slain this morning out of boredom strewn across his throne room. “Don’t lie, you enjoyed yourself.”

”Darkseid does not feel joy,” he said. “ **Joy=folly**.”

Jessica staggered, grasping her head. “Gah!” she yelped. “Stop _doing_ that!”

”Hrm.” Darkseid pivoted on his heel and trudged toward his throne. “Simply testing.”

Jessica narrowed her eyes. “Darkass,” she said with a grin, “were you _trolling_ me?”

Darkseid settled into his throne. “Yes.” He steepled his fingers. “Now, I believe, it is time for you to return home.”

Cruz ran a hand through her hair, scratched the back of her neck. “I just got here though,” she said. “Last time you gave me two hours.”

”It has been three.”

”What?” Cruz said, conjuring a pocket watch into her hand. “Oh, shit! I’m late!” The watch vanished, and Cruz careened out of the window, vanishing into a twinkle in the sky.

”Desaad,” Darkseid rumbled. “How does she keep getting in here?”

Desaad peeked out from behind the throne room door, his melting, rotted face half-hidden behind the frame. “We... we don’t know, My Lord,” he drawled. “We think she may have a Mother Box.”

”Then FIND OUT!” Darkseid roared, leaning forward and scorching two fist-sized holes in the wall next to Desaad’s head. “What use are our defenses if we cannot stop ONE LANTERN?”

Desaad shrieked. “Yes, My Lord!” he yelped. “Right away My Lord!”

Darkseid leaned back into his throne. “Find Himon if you must,” he said. “But discover how the lantern is getting here and find a way to stop it.”

Desaad bowed and scurried away.

Twin beams erupted from Darkseid’s eyes, coalescing in his hand into a bloody plastic Carnifex. The corner of his mouth quirked upward into the closest thing the Lord of Apokolips ever gave to a smile.

Truly, Lantern Cruz had grown into a fearless creature indeed.

* * *

Four universes away, Jessica Cruz stared at her ring, trying to steady her breath long enough to make a call. _It’s just Simon,_ she told herself. _You talk to Simon all the time._

_Yeah, in person. He doesn’t get mad at you in person._

_He doesn’t get mad at you over the phone either, numbnuts._

_Yeah but—_

_SHUT YOUR UP. CALL HIM._

She breathed in. “Ring. Call Simon.”

” _You got it, J-Bird_.”

Fuck. She’d rather be back with Darkseid.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jess is taking some creative liberties with Warhammer. I totally remember how it’s supposed to be played and she’s doing it differently on purpose.
> 
> That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.


End file.
